Mara Yamauchi has warned UK Athletics of the risks of taking Britain's
athletes to overseas training camps in the run-up to the 2012 London
Olympics after her six-day travel nightmare wrecked her chances in Sunday's
London Marathon.

Cautious view: Mara Yamauchi believes British athletes should not travel far afield in preparation for the 2012 OlympicsPhoto: GETTY IMAGES

By Simon Hart

7:20PM BST 26 Apr 2010

UK head coach Charles van Commenee has earmarked Monte Gordo, in Portugal, as Britain's main pre-Olympic training camp, with the endurance athletes preparing at altitude in Font Romeu in the French Pyrenees.

But Yamauchi, who finished a weary 10th on Sunday after last week's flight ban forced her to travel overland from Lisbon, believes the governing body should re-examine their plans.

"They need to think carefully about whether those two places are the right two places to prepare," said Yamauchi. "It would be a bit ironic if all the other countries with camps in Birmingham and wherever turned up on time and all the Brits were off stranded in Monte Gordo.

"If you are overseas there are any number of things that could thwart you from catching flights. They do need to think quite carefully about whether to go back to England."

Earlier this month, the British Olympic Association announced that the Team GB preparation camp would be switching from Aldershot to Loughborough, where many of the country's leading track and field athletes already train.

But athletics is one of a number of Olympic sports who are making separate plans to escape the public glare in the last few weeks before the Games by decamping abroad.

Van Commenee believes staying at home would expose his athletes to media pressures and unwanted distractions such as ticket requests from relatives.

Yamauchi is not the first British athlete to be hit by travel problems.

Two years ago, Britain's judo players arrived at the Beijing Olympics at 3am two days before the start of their competition after their flight from the BOA preparation camp in Macao was delayed by a typhoon.

Despite last week's flight chaos, UK Athletics said it had no plans to alter its 2012 plans.

A spokeswoman said: "The advantages of preparing the team away from the UK in the approach to 2012 vastly outweigh any potential disadvantages."